One of the undeniable laws of content marketing is that it works better when you have a documented strategy in place. Past research from Content Marketing Institute shows that:
“Brands with a documented content marketing strategy:
- Are far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing,
- Feel significantly less challenged with every aspect of content marketing,
- Generally are more likely to consider themselves more effective in their use of all content marketing tactics and social media channels,
- Were able to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing.”
In an agency setting, we have a clear incentive to produce a clear content marketing strategy for clients before we begin work.
But, strategy takes time, especially for a new client. Researching new target buyers, learning the ins and outs of an entirely new topic, and trying to think of ways to produce high-quality content for a new market all take a lot of time. We could easily spend 100 hours on strategy and brainstorming for a client before we ever produced a piece of content for them – but that’s a hard sell, and I think it’s an unnecessary one.
As a result, we’ve done our best to develop a process for creating content marketing strategies that are both effective and simple. By focusing on the essentials up front, we can come back later and conduct more detailed analysis after we’ve started working with a client, without losing sight of the big picture.
